Armando Iannucci's new film In The Loop is being billed as Britain's best comedy for years and is getting five star reviews. However, the story is causing eyebrows to be raised as events it portrays all seem very familiar to anyone who knows about British politics.
One such pundit is Vince Cable, the Lib-Dem's Shadow Chancellor. He has seen the film, and was astounded by how closely it mirrored certain events. "I couldn't believe it," he said, "I immediately recognized the main character and the story that was unfolding. It perfectly paralleled the BBC Four series 'The Thick of It'."
He went on to say that the central character, a government spin doctor, was obviously based on the character of the same name in the previous show. "They even had the same actor, Peter Capaldi, playing the part, so it wasn't hard to spot."
"I later read that In The Loop was made as a parody of The Thick of It. It satirizes the concept of a program about UK politics, and it does it very well. It's a case of art imitating art - you couldn't make it up!"
The Thick Of It, and the new film, In The Loop, were both made up in part by Armando Iannucci. He puts some of the coincidental similarity down to this. "Of course it doesn't match events exactly," he said, "For instance, Chris Langham's character was questionable, so we replaced it with an ex-mafia hoodlum turned US General."
